The kind that knows that an electrified rail at ground level won't be enough incentive to stop people from cutting across tracks--something that is dangerous enough with diesels. I'm surprised the third rail lines feeding London haven't been switched to overhead.
 
I'm not sure if this has been mentioned, but I suspect that for every person who demands electrification there is another scared s-less about EMF coming from the wires. This is before we even count the people who will think the overhead is an eyesore. Stay tuned for that fight...

Oh that's gonna be fun times in Oakville.
 
MetroNorth has 88.7 miles of 3rd Rail commuter rail, while the Long Island Rail Road has more than double that. Clearly the MTA doesn't care about the safety of the locals.

We have a saying in model railroading that holds true for just about every aspect of urban and transportation planning:

"There's a prototype for everything."
 
The kind that knows that an electrified rail at ground level won't be enough incentive to stop people from cutting across tracks--something that is dangerous enough with diesels. I'm surprised the third rail lines feeding London haven't been switched to overhead.
Your joking right ... you'd convert the tube to overhead?
 
Your joking right ... you'd convert the tube to overhead?

There are lines that can be converted from 3rd rail tube/metro/subway to overhead, as it would not require 100% fencing off where they hit the surface.

Been on trains in Europe where both 3rd rail and overhead is used. The train hits a certain area and drop the pan to change over to 3rd rail power or the reverse. The train must come to a full stop to do the conversion that can take up to 5 minutes.

In Nice, the LRT drops the pan to go through the square on battery and it takes over a minute to do the change over. The change over happens at at stop, but the driver can't move until the board gives the green light. I have a video up on youtube showing this under Nice France tag.

Not all lines have to be converted to overhead. Amsterdam has both overhead and 3rd rail for their metro underground, as it is setup for either LRT that runs on the surface outside the city centre or 3rd rail cars that stay underground. Didn't had the time to check all the metro lines to be 100% sure.

It is no different going to duel power for DMU lines in NYC or Montreal, let along the dozens of systems around the world.

Some London tubes have height issues for overhead conversion.

The conversion allows the lines to expand X distance at a lower cost. Most systems are moving to overhead for new lines.
 
Oh that's gonna be fun times in Oakville.

Have you seen yards and stations let alone the rail corridors look like with the overhead in the USA, let alone the world??

I do agree it will be an eye sore like TTC system, but the benefits are worth it until there is a battery/? system that can do the job better at a lower cost.

Batteries have to be recycle with X years life now for buses and what do you do for the 100's of thousand trains if they and all the transit vehicles were pure 100% battery???
 
I don't think the eyesore of the electrical overhead wires will be much of an issue. Some cities may find it objectionable but Torontonians are already use to them with the streetcars and soon LRT. These will also be going down a current rail corridor. I think everyone would be exstatic to see those overhead wires if it means they now will get quieter and none polluting trains. They of course will be faster but that doewsn't mean anything as no one who can't make it a tax write-off will be stupid enough to take it.
 
Have you seen yards and stations let alone the rail corridors look like with the overhead in the USA, let alone the world??

I do agree it will be an eye sore like TTC system, but the benefits are worth it until there is a battery/? system that can do the job better at a lower cost.

Batteries have to be recycle with X years life now for buses and what do you do for the 100's of thousand trains if they and all the transit vehicles were pure 100% battery???

My comment was mostly tongue in cheek. But I do worry a precedent has been set with the Sherway gas power plant cancellation. Some people could start crying about "Little Johnny" being exposed to "EM RADIATION" (ZOMG! Sounds scary!), and next thing you know a party promises to cancel it if they are elected (no matter the cost). It is important to remember that the Lakeshore West line runs literally in thousands of people's backyards. At least a few of those are guaranteed to be hysterical NIMBY's who will oppose anything, just because they can.
 
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Your joking right ... you'd convert the tube to overhead?

It isn't necessarily about the Tube. Mainline services north of London are generally overhead power and those south are third rail. This is a problem in the latter case whenever there is a snowstorm, resulting in thousands of angry people stranded at Waterloo station. First Capital Connect's Thameslink service switches power sources at Farringdon, roughly in the middle of the city.
 
Where do you get this stuff? I've caught diesels at the London Gatwick Airport train station - the Gatwick to Reading Great Western train for example.

Heathrow is electrified, but the only other Airport train station I've used in the UK is Birmingham International which also has a mix of diesel and electric, as far as I recall.

I'd be shocked if those are the only airport railway stations in the world that have diesels serving them.

Right you are, nfitz. This has been a talking point from the Clean Train Coalition which is demonstrably false. There are many other airports in the world that have diesel services. It's not to say that electrification is a bad idea; just don't use falsehoods to make your case.
 
My comment was mostly tongue in cheek. But I do worry a precedent has been set with the Sherway gas power plant cancellation. Some people could start crying about "Little Johnny" being exposed to "EM RADIATION" (ZOMG! Sounds scary!), and next thing you know a party promises to cancel it if they are elected (no matter the cost). It is important to remember that the Lakeshore West line runs literally in thousands of people's backyards. At least a few of those are guaranteed to be hysterical NIMBY's who will oppose anything, just because they can.

Don't think that's going to happen. Your forgetting about the alternatives of which there are really only 2;

-Continue to be operate trains power by diesel, the fumes of which have been proven to be carcinogenic as opposed to EM fields which are only report to be "possibly carcinogenic". I think even the most hardline NIMBY's realize the difference.
or
-Don't run trains at all! What a great idea! Except for the fact that all those trains will now most likely be displaced by personal automobiles which pollute far more per capita than trains.

So yea, for once the NIMBY's are completely screwed :cool:

In any case I highly doubt NIBMY's will be the biggest road block to electrifying the few GO corridors that they planned to(Kitchener & Lakeshore corridors). I have no doubt that honor will belong to the government in power when the time come(i.e. they'll cry poor, although I really hope they prove me wrong).
 
There are many other airports in the world that have diesel services. It's not to say that electrification is a bad idea; just don't use falsehoods to make your case.
Oh, Weston - that's where it is coming from.

Why is Mike Sullivan such a pathological liar?
 
It looks like there is space to complete the wye where the spur turns off from the Kitchener line. Hopefully that wye is completed at some point so that there can be service to the west.
 
If you call CTC on the places that have diesel, like Dallas or Trondheim, there would probably be some weasel excuse why that service isn't *really* an airport train or it's not the *right* sort of airport. The same way they blithely ignore the impact of regional passenger rail and CN/CP freight movements, which will stay dieselised, while assuming maximum operation of the ARL to theoretical limits, irrespective of constraints at any point, almost immediately.

That said, I doubt there's anyone on this board who wouldn't electrify the service, given it would actually be a better transportation solution technically, it's a question of when. The Feds made a balls of this project (when SNC Lavalin and their partners wanted to do it on the cheap with RDCs), sat on it for years and then sloughed it off onto the Province. The Province promised it as part of the Pan Am bid - possibly unwisely, but that's true of the whole Pan Am thing anyway. The chances of building an electric line by 2015 were low and that's before CN and CP came out of the closet in Montreal and said "we don't want electrification on non-dedicated track". Better to have the fight with CN where it needs to be fought - Lakeshore Line - and worry about Georgetown later when the route to Mimico is already electrified, and start putting a dent in the number of taxis hanging around the financial district. Personally I'm not wild about electrifying the ARL until it's a proven financial winner given that the ARL was planned before Porter existed and is unlikely to deal with all the reasons YTZ is pulling in more services.

As for third rail, since the case that was taken in Chicago where in 1977 a drunk guy got electrocuted after trespassing at a level crossing despite plenty of warning signs and what not, I don't see transit agencies building a new non-grade separated service with third rail unless they had no other option (what LIRR and MetroNorth have in their legacy systems is a different matter) because of the likely cost of public liability insurance - especially in Toronto where people have no compunction about trespassing along and across the poorly secured heavy rail alignments where they feel the nearest crossing is "just too far".
 
As for third rail, since the case that was taken in Chicago where in 1977 a drunk guy got electrocuted after trespassing at a level crossing despite plenty of warning signs and what not, I don't see transit agencies building a new non-grade separated service with third rail unless they had no other option (what LIRR and MetroNorth have in their legacy systems is a different matter) because of the likely cost of public liability insurance - especially in Toronto where people have no compunction about trespassing along and across the poorly secured heavy rail alignments where they feel the nearest crossing is "just too far".
You simply change the law so that there's no liability in such situations. Perhaps put in electric fences instead of just chain link ones.

If liability was such an issue, you wouldn't be allowing people onto parts of some of the very narrow subway platforms, such as at Yonge. Or standing on a GO platform at a suburban station when VIA runs through it at 150 km/hr.
 

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